High-speed, multi-color printing systems print test patterns that are subsequently captured for use in calibration and the like. A camera and strobe are synchronized so that a test pattern is captured for use in analyzing whether there is any mis-registration within the printing process. U.S. Pat. No. 5,018,213 discloses one such registration test pattern. In this disclosure, each printhead prints at least two test marks in the test pattern array. In other words, in the minimum-sized array of test registration colors, there are at least two of each test registration colors. In analyzing the registration test pattern, “each dot pair of the mark is identified by scoring various attributes of possible dot pairs including color, size and positions.” (see Abstract)
Although the above-described method is satisfactory, improvements are always desired. One such improvement is to use less area of the print media for printing test targets and not duplicating each test color with the test target array. The present invention provides such improvements.